Perseverance could make you forget the embarrassments and the obstacles. It must not cause people to lose lucidity, and the housing sector must retain its capacity for indignation. In recent years, we clearly feel that the link between the housing community and the State has deteriorated, that the two do not speak the same language. Certainly, professionals or associations are not exempt from all reproach: they should undoubtedly have anticipate budgetary withdrawal due to the drying up of public funds. The producers should have innovate more For lower pricesdemonstrate more wisdom in land purchases to curb speculation. The stock specialists should have further encourage renovationin particular to improve their energy performance. For the rest, the public authorities are guilty of three evils, not having prioritized housing in their constrained budgetary choices, not having reduced the tax burden And having multiplied the obligations of all kinds and complicated all stages of the life of goods, from construction to transmission.
We were expecting a major breakthrough, the creation of a tax status of common law recognizing the economic role of the individual investor, on which the development of the offer is based, the institutional investors not being there for this story. For years, the sector had worked to agree on the principle of depreciation of rental investments new and old, accompanied by the full deduction of operating expenses.
A blank page again
If it is necessary to take an institutional starting point, the restitution of the work of the National Housing Refoundation Council on June 5, 2023 could be retained. The most recent episodes are on everyone’s minds: a Bayrou budget project, inspired by Valérie Létard, with a simple and powerful damping deviceswept away by the overthrow of the former Prime Minister, then the forceps delivery in the project rewritten by Sébastien Lecornu of an unrecognizable mechanism, manipulated by all parliamentary hands, before the ultimate hope of a joint joint commission which would have restored the initial appearance of the desirable depreciation. This hope was dashed by the failure of this commission, which compromises the possibility of having a budget for France. In short, the page is blank again.
Should we conclude from this that depreciation will not see the light of day? No. The Minister of Cities and Housing, in the hypothesis which proved to be an inconclusive CMP, is already working on an agreement with the political groups so that the debates at the beginning of 2026 with a view to a consensus budgetafter the vote this week of a special law (which simply renews the 2025 budget to be able to raise taxes and operate public services), integrate a system as expected. At this point, it appears a deal has been formed. We will be grateful to Vincent Jeanbrun for his action and we hope that Bercy does not ultimately ruin it.
Lost months that will not be made up for
Does this mean that the failures of the government, which began by not writing anything for investment in its initial copy, before proposing an insignificant amendment, then conceding sub-amendments which twisted the system, the failure of the Minister of Public Accounts, who castrated the provision in the Senate, the failures of the two central blocks of the Assemblies, who did not mobilize the elected representatives widely enough in session during the votes, playing into the hands of the objectors, does this mean that all these successive failures will be forgotten?
No, far from it. These are months and months wasted who will not catch up. Months of production and sale of new housing to investors to accommodate tenants, months of mobilization of old housing so that households acquire them for rental purposes. More months added to months and years of neglect. Because the State failed, through deafness, through blindness, through unawareness of the issues: everything was ready for the finance law for 2024 to create depreciation, everything was ready, a fortiori, for the 2025 budget to create it in the general tax code, and of course we believed in the finance law for 2026.
Assuming that France has a budget at the end of February, nothing will be operational before the second half of the year. We will have lost hundreds of thousands of rental homes which could have increased the current supply. Missed chances, without batting an eyelid. To date, each month, these are 5,000 new homes which are not the subject of investments and 7,500 old homes which are not bought to rent or renovated to meet the requirements of decency. Every month, 12,500 households looking for rental properties are disappointed. A French shame? Yes, a French shame. What is more, the mechanism which was not born would have favored the rent moderationmuch more than supervision or any other coercion: it granted depreciation to housing rented at intermediate rents, even granting additional depreciation to housing put on the market at social or very social rents. In short, he intelligently attacked the unmet need for affordable housing.
Exasperated French people
We will greet thecommitment of political leaders who have always held this status at arm’s length and who deplore this result. To others, we will say that the exasperation of the French is at its height. The time of politics has never been so out of sync with the time of social and economic matters. It is also, unfortunately, a gap between two Francesthe one who governs and the one who is governed. The institutional and the real no longer resonate together and it’s terrible. In 2015, Pierre Méhaignerie, who was a major minister of equipment, housing, land use planning and transport, published a book in the run-up to the presidential elections under the title “Open letter to the French who no longer want to be governed from above”. Ten years later, the manifesto of the French record holder for elections in the first round of all ballots, also record holder for the percentages of favorable votes, is burning news. He wouldn’t have imagined it.
